Scathingly Brilliant

I'm moving to substack!

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 05:00:00 +0000

I am very excited about blogging regularly again, but I feel like it's time for me to move over to a platform that's more user-friendly for both authors and their readers. The mobile view of Blogger sites makes the photos so tiny, and it erases all of the customization and identity of the blog. And lately even when I view my blog on my desktop the load times are horrible. I also don't think people really use Blogger as a following platform anymore, so unless you have my site bookmarked or follow a direct link I post on social, I'm not sure how anyone is seeing my posts? And finally (but probably most importantly!) I format my posts using the HTML view on Blogger, and when I was formatting my last few posts it was a nightmare. It kept adding code that I didn't want and the code I added wasn't always reflected when I went back into the composing view. It's been so frustrating trying to post here and I want it to be fun! Even in compose view now when I hit "enter" it adds multiple lines. It's so annoying! I'm sure even after I publish this, once I view it live on my blog there are going to be weird spaces everywhere that I'll have to come back and try to fix 🫠

I've thought about the different options and decided to go with Substack, primarily because it was so incredibly easy to import my entire Scathingly Brilliant archive. It's already there, it literally took *minutes.* I follow several people on Substack and I love that I get their posts directly in my email inbox, so that was also a huge plus!

I'm in the process of manually adding tags to all of my posts so they can be sorted by outfits, room tours, DIY posts, recipes, etc. and I'm already done with 2013 forward. (Of course 2011-2012 were my most prolific blogging years so I have a lot of work ahead of me lol!) I added links to those categories in the navigation bar on my homepage.

Everything I've ever posted so far is free, and as of right now I don't have any plans to put content behind a paywall (I also have a patreon and I feel like that's where paywalled content will continue to live.) I do, however, have comments turned off for free members, so a paid subscription is required to comment. I turned comments off on this blog back in 2014 after I was exhausted by how many trolls I kept getting, and this seemed like a happy medium between turning them off entirely or letting everything through. Of course if anyone wants to support the substack it would be greatly appreciated, but it isn't necessary to access any of the posts :)

To join me over on Substack, click here! I hope to see you there!! 💕

xo Kate

my basement arcade

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 02:11:00 +0000

Here is one very cool feature in my house that I didn't really post about too much because the dark room didn't match my social media aesthetic 🤣 I LOVE arcade games and the whole vibe of an arcade makes me feel like I'm back in the '90s again! I wanted this to feel as retro and classic as possible - I even had a little mp3 player that had an "arcade background noise" file on it that I'd play on a loop with an '80s and '90s music soundtrack accompanying it on my phone. I wanted it to be as immersive as possible whenever I came down here to play!

For Christmas in 2023 Arrietty got her own little pool table to go in the arcade! Mostly I would just see her sitting on it and not playing with the toys but she's a very lazy cat lol.

My dad got me the Pac-Man desktop game for Christmas during lockdown and I got the Asteroids one to match once I was putting the arcade together. They're just sitting on cheap kitchen shelves that I covered in black poster board to give the illusion of a full-size game.

This is actually the second version of the arcade - my basement flooded in April 2024 and I had to empty everything out so it could be remediated. I was so lucky I was able to save this carpeting. It's just two area rugs (these are the ones I bought) that I hand-stitched together to make a giant rug, but I had spent so much time on it! Before this I had curtains hanging up in front of the walls but after the flooding I decided to paint the cinder blocks dark purple and I hand painted a fun design on top. I made a dark purple curtain to hide the basement window, and added a neon tube light around the perimeter (by the way, Gorilla Glue construction adhesive sticks to cinder blocks if you're curious how I was able to hang anything up here!

One of my favorite things about the arcade was the poster display. I wanted posters that reminded me of going to the multiplex when I was a kid. I got all of these from movieposters.com and they were so inexpensive (I think most of them were like $3.99 because they're not popular films!)

I wish I had taken a close-up photo of my Prizes area because I thought it was so cool!! I would actually hand out tickets to my friends and family so they could redeem them for prizes later. I had all of the bins marked with different ticket amounts, with some big-ticket prizes hanging up like inflatable guitars and teddy bears!

One thing I've noticed while gathering photos for these blog posts is that I really did not take nearly as many pictures of my house as I wish I had. It's probably because I was just too busy enjoying living there -- but in retrospect I wish I had filmed more of my projects when I was designing all of the rooms and I wish I had taken more photos when it was done! Sometimes I have dreams that I'm back there and dream-me will think "oh, I should take some pictures while I'm here!" 🤣 But then, alas, I wake up!

my bedroom at my house

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Wed, 04 Mar 2026 22:54:00 +0000

It's hard to believe that pretty soon it'll be two whole years since the last time I slept in this bedroom. I loved it SO MUCH!! I always dreamed about having one of those '70s rooms that looked like a floral pattern threw up on every surface. I'm obsessed with that style so much and I am so glad I got to do it!!

Before I even moved into my house I had the upstairs floors redone with this light pink wall-to-wall carpeting. LITERALLY a dream come true for me. I also had all the ceilings painted light pink, so between those two things every room had a bit of a pinkish glow to it. It was so pretty!

I had a set of drawers in one closet and Arrietty's litter box in the other. Me and my brother built this custom piece of furniture that made it look like a matching set of drawers, with a cutout for Arrietty to go in and out. The back had two legs with wheels so I could roll the facade out and access the litter box. One of many little projects that I was so proud of in this home!

I also had a bit of a "sleep" theme to the artwork in my bedroom which was so fun!

As someone with GI issues, I cannot tell you how excited I was about finally having a bathroom connected to my bedroom. It was one of the main things I was excited about when I moved in!! I designed a custom tile pattern for the floor in my master bath and then cut out a matching floral pattern in vinyl on my cricut to make my own "wallpaper."

I always had to slightly close the door at night though because the mirror faced the bed and it weirded me out lol! I always feel so spooked by mirrors at night!

For my night stands I made custom Good Nite decals inspired by the Drexel Plus One furniture from the '70s. I took a photo of my table and imported it into Procreate. Then I drew my design over the photo to make sure it would fit perfectly before printing it out on my cricut.

I also used the two shelving units on either side of my bed to display my ceramic cat collection. One of the things that I loved the most about having a whole house to myself was the amount of room I had that was strictly for displaying pretty things. Right now I'm back with my parents for a while and when I move out in a few months I'm planning to get a studio apartment. I don't really see a future where I'll have this kind of room again, and I really loved it while it lasted! I'm obviously a "more is more" kind of person and I just loved having room for all of my thinggggggggs!

I had one giant daisy rug (I got it like 6 years ago so I don't remember where... maybe pottery barn kids?) and some bathroom mats to create some visual interest on the floor. I wanted this room to look fun and busy and kitschy and this definitely helped accomplish that!

When the bathroom door was closed at night I had more of that fun floral pattern on display!

This dresser used to be at the foot of my bed before I moved into my house and it fit perfectly on this wall under my tv. I used it to display my collection of lady dishes. It made me so happy seeing them all together this way!

I've been trying to figure out how to make my own head shaped hangers for years to no avail, but in the meantime these vintage ones are prized possessions that I've had hanging up in my various bedrooms for over 10 years now. I just think they are so cool!!

I really lucked out that Society6 wasn't curating their platform yet when I designed this room, because I was able to completely cover every surface in one pattern thanks to all of their product options (blanket, pillowcases, wallpaper, curtains, tapestry fabric, so many things!!) About a year ago they removed a ton of artists from their platform. I was selected to stay on, but then they recently implemented a limit on designs, where items that haven't reached a certain threshold of monthly sales are automatically removed, so I ended up with one single item in my shop. 🫠 I'm still working on trying to find an alternative because having this ability to completely customize my interiors was one of the most exciting developments in my *whole life!* and I definitely would not have been able to make this room happen without it.

pajama state of mind

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 22:08:00 +0000

I was at Kohl's recently and noticed how many fun pajamas they have with lots of bright colors and cute patterns! And it got me thinking about how those sorts of clothes are often relegated to the bedroom and people rarely wear such bold, lively items out of the house. And THEN it got me thinking that you could easily incorporate pajamas into your outfits, especially tops since they're essentially the same as a classic button down shirt (and often with prettier peter pan collars instead of the standard pointy ones!)

All this to say, I am wearing a pajama shirt in this outfit and I think it looks FANTASTIC.

I also painted my eyeglass frames on a whim last night! They're Pair glasses (the kind where you can swap out the tops for different colors. not sponsored, nothing ever is lol) so it was easy to paint without worrying I'd ruin the glass. I used nail polish and little tiny sponges to blend everything together and I'm obsessed with how they came out! I've really been in a phase where I just want to wear ALL of the colors ALL of the time and these glasses are definitely helping me to accomplish that lol!

shirt - ban.do

sweater vest - j.crew

pants - athleta

neck tie - fat cat fancy

glasses - pair eyewear (Otis frame)

hi there!

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Sat, 14 Feb 2026 21:31:00 +0000

Today I took outfit photos - the old fashioned set-up-my-tripod-and-run-back-and-forth-to-the-camera-between-each-shot kind! I haven't done this since 2021 according to my ootd folder on my computer, and that is just bonkers! I've done some mirror selfies and a handful of outfit videos for instagram reels but I can't believe this thing that was a part of my daily life for so long was just totally missing for 5 years!

I miss blogging and doing outfit posts. I guess it's all part of that 2016 nostalgia that's been trending online lately. I miss the static image version of social media and the era when those photos were accompanied by text with an unrestricted word count. Sometimes I find myself penning blog-style captions on instagram and coming up against the character limit way too fast. It doesn't help that I write all my captions in texts to myself on my computer and then copy and paste them into instagram on my phone - I'm always like 1,000 characters over at that point and have to trim it down 😂

But anyway, I feel so incredibly OVER all of it. The algorithms and countless posts about which types of media are trending. Do a carousel, NOT a static image! Make sure your first sentence is a HOOK. Everybody has the attention span of a gnat so do everything you possibly can to get them to watch YOU for 10 seconds. Your best time to post is at 7:55pm. If you post in the morning nobody will see it! Use this trending audio or else people will keep scrolling. I just don't want to participate in any of that anymore.

I want to post my old fashioned outfit pictures and static images and long blog posts that I can come back to and read 10 years from now. I'm constantly searching my blog as if it's a digital archive of my life. Recipes, life events, where did I get that dress that I loved so much? What did I write about Arrietty the week that I brought her home? I really hate that most of that digital life archive has lived on sites like instagram and twitter for the past 5 years instead of here, because it's not searchable and it doesn't feel like my own little home. It's an online parking space, not a house. I want to live here again!

I recently got over a really bad GI flare and was living in pajamas and sweatpants, so Valentine's Day seemed like the perfect impetus for finally getting dolled up again and sharing some photos here! I feel like whenever I go through these health episodes I always come out on the other side looking forward to three things: getting dressed up, going to the grocery store, and eating pizza. So far I've done two out of the three (still giving myself another week or so of being back to normal before I take a chance on pizza!) As much as I *hate* how miserable I feel while it's happening, I'm always left with a new zest for life and appreciation for little things like leaving the house, going to the movies, waking up from an uninterrupted night of sleep, and wearing things that make me feel more human.

I'm notoriously bad at sticking to things and chances are this will be my last blog post until next February when I re-read this and feel incredibly disappointed in my ability to follow through on literally anything. But hopefully not! Hopefully this will be one of many entries in my digital life archive this year. Hope to see you around, and Happy Valentine's day!!

Dress - Lazy Oaf

Shirt - GAP

Belt - h&m

Earrings - Blush Daisy

Necklace - Blush Daisy

My apartment bedroom

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 23:33:00 +0000

After I moved out of my house I moved into an apartment, and I'm currently using the master bedroom as a bedroom/closet/office hybrid. My bed is pushed up against the wall, and the headboard serves as a divider between the bedroom and the office, with felt daisy garland strands hanging from the ceiling to add a little extra separation between the two spaces.

The bedding and wall tapestry are both from my society6 shop. The tapestry felt like a great way to separate this section as its own little room since the rest of the space is just painted plain pink.

In my old bedroom in my house all of the artwork was sleep-themed, and I kept a few of my favorites on display here as well! The "literally nothing" poster print is from The Motivated Type, the "Less drama" print is from Hollie Startup, the "Worries can't reach me" print is from A Soft Wrongness, and the "Tired all the time" poster print is from Exquisite Paradox.

The giant poster of the sleeping woman is actually a vintage ad for bed sheets that I bought on ebay and scanned so I could blow it up to 30" x 40"! I'm SO thrilled with how it came out. The ad already had a bit of a halftone pattern, so it upscaled beautifully and it just looks so perfect hanging above my bed. I uploaded the file to my google drive, if you want you can download it here.

I don't have room for a nightstand, so I decided to hang a floating shelf and use that instead! It actually works great - I was a little worried at first that I was going to constantly bump my head on it, but I don't actually end up sleeping anywhere near the edge of it - so far so good! I also have a discreet ipad holder on the underside of the shelf. I love reading on my kindle app in bed and using one of those remote page turners so I can be extra cozy laying on my side, all bundled up in my blankets!

The bedroom in my house (which I'll be sharing soon!) was an all-time vintage inspired kitschy dream room and I'll never be able to compete with that, but I am pretty darn pleased with how my little bedroom nook looks in my new apartment. And it's so, so comfy! I'm not exaggerating when I say that my favorite part of every day is getting into this bed and cuddling with Arrietty before I go to sleep. It's a perfect cozy oasis!

my home cinema!

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Tue, 21 Jan 2025 22:30:00 +0000

For a little while, I lived the dream! As an obsessive cinephile there was nothing I wanted more in my house than my own little home theater. Not just to watch movies (duh!) but also to finally have a home for my massive collection of movie posters that I had been hoarding and collecting for decades. This will sound so silly but there were times when I didn't even watch a movie, I just stood in the theater and looked around at it. I was just so happy to have it, so grateful that life led me to a place where I could devote a room in my home to my love of the movies. Even if this only lasted a little over a year, I will look back fondly on this room, the memories I made in here, and the warm fuzzy celluloid feelings it gave me.

Now, first let's take a look at the before photo, from when I first got the keys!

Me and my brother built the arched entryway from plywood (not the most perfect way to do it, but it did the trick!) and I made my Cinema sign using my laser printer.

I don't know how many people would want to recreate this, but if you're looking for authentic home theater carpeting I highly recommend the one I got, here. It came rolled up and I hired a local flooring company to install it for me as wall-to-wall carpeting. This was one of the first things I did when I moved in (the rug was literally sitting in the POD in my parents' driveway before it was even delivered to the house on move-in day lol!) and it immediately made the house feel like it was mine!

The chairs were all from Wayfair (I just searched for "black recliner" and then sorted the results from cheapest to highest price and picked the cheapest ones lol) I put the back row chairs on furniture risers so that they'd have a little more clearance to see the screen. Each chair had a blue quilt (from the kid's section at Target!) so we could all be extra cozy during the movies!

I used the wall behind the roll-down screen to store my DVD collection and also to highlight three of my all-time favorite films. Above the shelving I had printed out pictures of my favorite movie stars and put them in Dollar Store frames.

My house didn't have a ton of closet space, so at the back of the theater I had two utility cabinets filled with pantry items and household essentials (toilet paper, my vacuum and broom, paper towels, etc.) and then I used the side of one of the cabinets to build a mini concession stand for candy and popcorn!

I've mostly come to terms with having to give up this house, especially since I was able to move a lot of my furniture and knick-knacks and artwork into my apartment. But I just don't have the room anymore for most of these posters and they're back in storage. I can't imagine I'll ever own a house again (I don't even know if I would want to after this ordeal) but I really miss having my own little theater.

long time no see!

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 01:45:00 +0000

Hey! Long time, no see. I mean on this blog at least - I've still been posting things on social media so maybe it's not long time no see, maybe you literally just saw my instagram stories earlier tonight!

Anyway, a lot has happened since my last post when I was giddy with excitement over my cup holder bags and mere months away from getting the keys to an actual real life house. I spent most of the last two years knee-deep in decorating projects and making my house the most fun, colorful, retro, happy PINK house that I possibly could! I made the den into a home theater complete with a 90s inspired patterned carpet, I turned my guest room into a time-travel room that was a replica of my childhood bedroom! I had cat doors for Arrietty everywhere and pink carpeting upstairs. I covered the kitchen in a fun retro pink flower power wallpaper and made an arcade in my basement. It was so fun!

I had to put the house up for sale this past summer (long story, you can read more here) and it officially closed on Friday. I just realized that most of the photos of my house that have been circulating around the internet for the last 6 months all came from the Realtor listing so I wanted to post them here and give them a real home 💖

I'll break this up into a few posts so it's not like a hundred photos at once! Let's start with the kitchen! This might be the room that changed the most over the ~2 years I lived there. I had a hard time getting it perfect, but by the time these photos were taken I was finally completely, totally happy with how it looked. I loved the color scheme, the fun wallpaper, the mismatched color chairs, and my checkered rug. It was just SUCH a happy room!

I made a thing

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Tue, 02 Aug 2022 17:53:00 +0000

Hey, long time no see! Since this was, once upon a time, a fashion blog, I felt like I should post a little update for anyone out there who might still be checking in to let you know that I designed a purse! And it's got a heart emblem and scallops because my taste in clothing and accessories has not changed one iota in the last 10 years lol!

I'm selling these on Kickstarter and I already passed my goal - by A LOT, actually - and if you'd like one you can pre-order right here. They're designed to hold a water bottle, they're available in 12 colors (including a Halloween themed version!!) and they're available through August 12th.

Also if anyone misses me (??) I'm still posting regularly on twitter and I joined tiktok!

undeniable determination

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Sun, 07 Feb 2021 21:17:00 +0000

This is a close approximation of what I was wearing on February 7, 2011, exactly ten years ago! You can see my original outfit post right here. I don't have that dress anymore, which is a shame since it was one of my first adventures in sewing. But even with my alterations I still didn't wear it very often, mostly because the bodice was too long for me (you can see it bunching a bit in the pictures) and I didn't know at the time that it was only like a $10 fix at the tailor. Also I hardly ever smiled in my photos back then. I wasn't sad, I just didn't think I looked nice when I smiled, and that in turn makes me a little sad. I'm glad I finally got over that at some point and let my happiness show in my photos now :)

This dress was a recent find on Thredup (not sponsored) which is where I've been getting a lot of my new-to-me clothes recently. I love color and fun patterns and bold designs just as much as I always have, but most stores seem to only be selling clothes in various shades of grey and beige these days. So I've been getting my shopping fix buying slightly used clothing instead! I especially love that they have a "fit and flare" filter on their dress page! All I have to do is scan the listings for pops of color and shopping is a breeze lol!

Also, this bow tie is actually a hair tie with a duck bill clip in the back. I attached it by putting a bobby pin on the neckline of my dress and then attaching the bow to the bobby pin. The bow mostly hides the pin, so you don't even see it! It's my new favorite clothing hack! I got a few of these hair bows in different colors and can't wait to start adding a little vintage bow flair to some of my dresses!

dress - J Crew (via thredup) | shoes - bait footwear | bow - amazon

a super belated Christmas decoration post

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Sat, 06 Feb 2021 00:50:00 +0000

I'm planning on finally taking my Christmas decorations down this weekend, but before I did I wanted to take some pictures and post them since I was really, really happy with how everything looked this year! My favorite part was my new pink Christmas tree, which fits so perfectly in my space it's almost like it was made to order. I've wanted a tree like this for so long but never found the exact right shape or color. I love that this has such a long pole at the bottom before the actual tree starts, the perfect pink color that isn't quite pastel and isn't fluorescent neon (I feel like all pink trees tend to be one or the other) but a perfect carnation pink. I love the height and width, a small scale full size tree for a small space! I got it on amazon (it's only available in 7' now but mine is 6') And I love my new tree topper that I made out of laser cut wood and glitter mod podge. It's a "Topper" topper. If you like classic movies hopefully you'll get the pun ;)

A small "where I got that" list, if you're curious!

= My Christmas cat pillowcase is from Vinnie Boy Vintage

= DIY honeycomb santa wall hanging is from my shop

= Pastel putz houses are from Everyday is a Holiday

= Tall putz houses were from Anthropologie

= Lady vases & Christmas cat figurines are vintage

= NOEL figures & choir girls are vintage

how I do my own nails at home

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Tue, 26 Jan 2021 16:00:00 +0000

I used to get really bad hangnails all the time up until I started getting professional manicures in 2016. It completely solved the problem and I've been blissfully hangnail-free ever since. That is, until the pandemic started, and I realized I'd have to learn how to do my own nails, post haste! At first I bought a kit to DIY my own acrylics but it was really, really difficult. It took me somewhere between 4-6 hours each time I did them, they were really bumpy, they wouldn't last very long, and to get them off I'd have to file them down with an electric nail file which added even more time onto the process. I gave up on doing my own acrylics in May, just two months after I started lol!

In the mean time I tried just doing gel polish, which would always chip after 1-2 days, the Kiara Sky gelly system, and just plain old regular polish which chipped even faster than the gel and didn't make any difference preventing hangnails.

Finally I decided to just try glue-on nails with gel polish over them and that has been my go-to method for over six months now. They last about 2-3 weeks and the whole process usually takes me about the length of a movie. It still takes a little longer than it would if I went to a salon and it lasts about one week less than a professional manicure (and it definitely doesn't look as great lol) but I'm so happy that I figured out a way to stay hangnail-free, have pretty manicured nails, and avoid unnecessary outings during the pandemic! These actually feel like real acrylics, they are hard as nails, and perfect for opening cans and scratching itches lol

What I use

- UV Lamp - This is the one that I have, and I really like it.

- Alcohol wipes

- Nail file

- 100% acetone

- Foil wraps for removing gel polish

- Cuticle softener

- Cuticle pusher & trimmer

- Cuticle oil

- Gel nail base & top coat

- Glue-on nails (I like KISS brand)

- Gel polish (I like Beetles and Kiara Sky brands)

My process

1. If I am removing old nails then first I would soak the nail in acetone for 15 minutes and then use a cuticle pusher & nail file to remove any leftover product. If you aren't removing old nails, skip ahead to step 2.

2. Use cuticle softener on the nail beds and then clean up with a cuticle pusher & trimmer before filing and wiping the nails with alcohol wipes.

3. Apply a small dot of glue to the nail & a small dot to my own nail. Press for 30 seconds.

4. File the nails down to the length & shape that I like, and then file the surface to rough it up a bit so that the gel polish will hold.

5. Apply one coat of base gel to one hand. Put hand under the light for 99 seconds.

6. Apply one coat of color to one hand. Put hand under the light for 99 seconds.

7. Apply second coat of color to one hand. Put hand under the light for 99 seconds.

8. Apply one coat of top gel to one hand. Put hand under the light for 99 seconds.

9. Wipe fingers with alcohol wipes.

10. Repeat the process for your other hand.

11. Apply cuticle oil and massage it into the nail beds.

Some tips

- Don't skip the step where you file your nails and then wipe them with alcohol wipes before applying the glue-on nails. It really helps them to stick better.

- Once you figure out which nail fits perfectly on each finger, make a note of the number (it's either printed on a little removable tab or on the inside of the nail itself, depending on which type of nails you get) and then write it down. Then next time you do your nails you immediately know which ones fit and you don't have to take the time to size each one.

- Hold the nail in place after you glue it for 30 seconds. I know that seems like a lot but I've found they stay on better if I hold them longer than the recommended 10 seconds.

- If you have a hard time holding the nail in place without getting glue on your fingers (speaking from experience lol) buy longer nails and then file them down to the length that you want them. I prefer short-medium length nails but I buy slightly longer fake nails that give me a little lip to hold onto when I'm gluing.

- When the nails have been on for about 2-3 weeks they might start popping off on their own. LET THEM. Just go a few days with some missing nails. It ends up being a gigantic time saver when it comes time to put on a new set. I used to keep gluing mine back on and then when I was ready to remove them I had to soak all of my nails in acetone and slough off the glue and old nails, and it just takes so much longer than letting them pop off on their own. Usually like 9 of my nails will pop off in a 1-2 day span towards the end of my set and I'll be left with one single stubborn nail that will need to be soaked off, but it's way easier than doing all 10. All this being said, if one nail pops off 3 days into a new set I do still glue that one back on :)

- When you're painting with your non-dominant hand, I've found that it helps a lot of I move the hand that I'm painting instead of the hand holding the brush. It helps me have more control and has resulted in much, much neater paint jobs. Sometimes my right hand comes out even better than my left, something that definitely was not the case when I first started this last March lol!

sweetheart

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Mon, 25 Jan 2021 16:00:00 +0000

It's officially that time of year when I start wearing pink and red like it's a uniform lol :) Sometimes I think it's kind of funny how much I absolutely LOVE Valentine's Day when I've never had a significant other or even been on a date. But what can I say, hearts and pink and red are my jam.

The only holiday I enjoy more than Valentine's Day color-wise is Easter. A few years ago I started hosting our family Easter dinners (I wrote a bit about it here) and I went all out on decorations. I had so much fun shopping at Michaels and Target and Pier 1 and stocking up on plates and napkins and wicker bunnies and decorative easter eggs! Each year I've added a few things to the mix because I just simply can't help myself when I see a wall of pastel Easter decor in front of me lol! Last year they had *just* put out Easter decorations before my last trips to stores before the quarantine, so I managed to get a cute pastel egg wreath from Target and a new table runner before we shuttered in for the year. This year I might cruise Target.com when it gets a little closer and keep the tradition going.

I feel like a broken record at this point because I've complained about this so often, but so much decor/clothing/everything these days is neutral and looks so drab to me. So I really treasure these colorful holidays when stores make some space for bright and happy decorations, and the world is allowed to be a little bit more vibrant :)

shirt - asos | skirt - old | shoes - bait footwear | tie - amazon

happy days are here again

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Thu, 21 Jan 2021 22:11:00 +0000

In my last blog post I wrote about how uncomfortable I've felt sharing frivolous posts during such serious times but today I feel like I can unabashedly just scream "YAY!!", put on the happiest, sunniest outfit possible, and sing "happy days are here again" because Joe Biden is officially the President and Kamala Harris is our first female VP! It actually happened, today is really here, things are changing for the better and I could not be more happy about it. I cried so many happy tears yesterday that I had to put ice packs on my eyes before I went to sleep because my eyelids were so sore! I'm THAT happy!!

I'm happy for so, so many reasons. Obviously I'm happy that the previous president is gone, that's a given. I'm happy that the pandemic will finally be taken seriously and hopefully it'll come to an end much quicker than it would have otherwise. I'm happy that the vaccine rollout will finally be organized and my at-risk parents will get their doses soon. I'm happy that I don't have to wake up each morning wondering if we randomly bombed Switzerland or something. I'm happy that there might actually be a place for frivolity in the world again. And more than anything else I'm happy that Joe Biden, a man I have admired and rooted for for my entire adult life, is sitting in the oval office. I have a button that I purchased at the 2005 NJ Democratic Convention that says 'Biden for President 2008', so this has been something I have wanted for a very, very long time. He is such an incredibly kind and decent man with a giant heart and more empathy than most politicians have put together. I truly believe that he will always do what he really believes is the right thing to do, without any consideration of his own political fortunes. He has our best interest at heart and he is going to be such a great president. Oh, and he's adopting the first White House rescue cat so I mean, does it get any better than that??

dress - old | shirt - asos | belt - collectif | shoes - bait footwear

ye olde juicebox

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Wed, 13 Jan 2021 23:29:00 +0000

Here is my second recreation of an outfit I wore exactly ten years ago! On January 13, 2011 I wrote a post about a historic house in my hometown and judging from the photos and the text I'm pretty sure I was in a crabby mood that day lol. I was wearing a plaid dress, black coat, red tights, and black shoes. I am fairly certain I still have that dress but I think it's in my storage unit because I couldn't find it in my closet. I did, however, have this nearly identical plaid printed frock at the ready.

This ten year project is so surreal because that time period of my life doesn't feel like a decade ago. Not much in my personal life has changed since then. I don't feel like I've progressed at all in my career and I feel like somehow I've regressed when it comes to friendships and connecting with other human beings. I don't keep in touch with many friends (mostly because I don't think anyone likes me, something I'm definitely working on with my therapist) and even before the pandemic I honestly didn't leave the house all that often. Life in 2011 looks a lot like my life in 2021. With one pretty big exception - the world around me.

While my own life has stayed the same and time has passed without much notice, the world I was living in in 2011 is so different from 2021. The other day I said something like "I have so much hope that Biden will get a handle on the pandemic provided this coup doesn't pan out." and I just had to stop myself and consider how insane that sentence was! Looking at my old posts, it's just so hard to believe how much the world has changed in such a short amount of time. My generally frivolous existence was perfectly fine six or seven years ago, but now I feel such enormous guilt when I share unimportant content. I hesitate to post things and I take long social media breaks, but inevitably I still share it because I think there's a place in the world for silly things even during the darkest times, and because I am a firm believer in escapism. But I definitely miss those days when the most pressing concern in life was whether or not my brother was being moody about taking my photo on a cold January day in 2011.

dress - amazon | coat - asos (old) | tights - we love colors

can't you hear my heartbeat

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Mon, 04 Jan 2021 20:06:00 +0000

In 2011 I started blogging every single day - and often more than once a day. I logged a whopping 430 posts on this site in 2011!! I was scrolling through my archives the other night and thought it might be fun to start recreating some of my outfits on the exact tenth anniversary of the day I wore the original ensemble. So here is my first one, a 2021 version of what I wore on January 4th, 2011! You can view my original post here.

In my Jan. 4, 2011 post I wrote about getting my first "you're fat" comment on my blog and how it was water off a duck's back because I was so confident, but I'm sure it really, really hurt me. In 2013 (two whole years after this 2011 post flaunting my unyielding confidence) I deleted my entire instagram account because somebody said I was ugly. I was just soo sensitive and that's never gone away. Several months ago somebody with a Bette Davis avatar on twitter told me I was ugly and while a bunch of friends hopped to my defense and I swiftly blocked the person, it still hurt a lot. And the fact that it appeared to be coming from Bette Davis made it even worse lol!

I don't think I'm ugly and I don't think I'm fat (not that there would be anything wrong with either thing anyway) but I think it's just the idea that someone out there really doesn't like YOU. It's like Pam says on The Office, "I hate the idea that someone out there hates me. I even hate thinking that Al-Qaeda hates me." It always hurts, no matter how many years of blogging or social media you have under your belt. The mean comments I used to get in my early days of blogging led me to stop allowing comments on this blog entirely and I rarely check my comments on social media. I probably missed out on a lot of very kind and pleasant responses and definitely lost out on potential friendships I might have formed through mutual commenting, but it caused me so much anxiety that I just feel so much better being completely oblivious. I look at that photo of myself from 2011 and think about what a brave face I was putting on, while I was definitely hurt inside. But then I look at these photos I took today and see a blissfully unaware, confident girl who happily takes pictures of herself because she can't hear the hate anymore.

dress - asos | top - modcloth | collar clips - my shop (coming soon) | tights - uo (old)

Mini kitchen DIY/tour

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Sun, 03 Jan 2021 06:33:00 +0000

As I mentioned two posts back, I had an uncomfortable living situation for most of 2020 and a byproduct of that ordeal was that I did not have access to the kitchen in my house. It's a long story, but suffice to say I spent most of 2020 buying processed foods that you could eat out of a box and ordering way more McDonald's lunches and dinners than I should ever admit lol. By September I just felt so unhealthy that I decided to build a makeshift kitchen in my room so that I could start cooking my own meals, store frozen vegetables, and generally just eat normal again.

I haven't left the house since March so this whole area was constructed by meticulously measuring the space in my room and double-checking online measurements before ordering all of the necessary pieces for delivery. And it all fit and worked absolutely perfectly! In late November I was able to start using the real kitchen in my house again, but I still use this regularly and I'm so glad that for September, October, and November I was able to get healthy again.

I thought I'd share this for two reasons - first of all, I am super proud of how this turned out! I didn't just make the best of a bad situation, I made it cute too! :) And also when I first decided to do this I researched to see if anyone else had done something similar and I couldn't find anything! So I thought, perhaps if someone out there has a little studio apartment or office that could use a cute tiny kitchen, maybe my experience will come in handy for you!

Since I have wall-to-wall (ugly.. ugh!) carpet and didn't want the refrigerator resting on a carpeted floor I built a small tiled floor using a chair mat and peel-and-stick tiles. I actually do not recommend this particular method since the weight of the furniture has warped the floor a bit. If you're doing this I would recommend building a plywood base first, since it would be more sturdy than the chair mat was.

This gives you a little better view of the whole layout. The "wall" behind my kitchen is actually a piece of beadboard that my brother cut to size for me with a circular saw. I have a curtain hanging on the other side that faces my bedroom. The curtain has been there for years but with the kitchen appliances there I didn't want the cords bumping up against fabric so I decided to build my own wall!

Here's a brief summary of what I did and where I got everything:

1. The refrigerator is a 3.2 cubic foot mini fridge from Home Depot. I picked this because of the color (obviously) but also because it has way more freezer space than most mini fridges, and I really wanted to be able to store a lot of frozen vegetables and smoothie materials.

2. The microwave is from Amazon. Not the best microwave and it usually needs a minute added on to every cook time but it does the job and it's pretty enough :)

3. The microwave shelf is also from Amazon. It comes with thin clear plastic protectors that you can put on the shelves but they weren't sturdy enough so I painted some cork board pink and cut it to size instead.

4. The toaster is from Amazon. I obviously tend to purchase things because they look pretty but this is also a really nice toaster.

5. The ice cream artwork is from Everyday is a Holiday (two of my favorite artists so please check them out even if you aren't in need of an ice cream plaque!)

6. The white scalloped shelves on my wall are actually these plastic shelves from Amazon that I painted white with chalk paint (it adheres better to plastic) and faced with laser cut scalloped wood that I cut myself. The pink shelves are these narrower plastic shelves from Amazon, painted white and then faced with scalloped wood that I cut and painted pink.

7. I got my electric kettle from Amazon. Unfortunately they don't have the pink one listed anymore there but the brand is ASCOT. I love this kettle so much that even though I have access to the stovetop in my kitchen again I still keep making my tea this way.

8. I got the table from Wayfair. This table turned out to be the most perfect makeshift kitchen I could have hoped for! The side has shelving so I could store snacks and ingredients for cooking, it's the perfect height for a countertop, and the mini fridge fits under the tabletop *perfectly* with a little room to spare for a tray that I use to store cooking utensils. My brother drilled a hole near the back of the tabletop so that I could drop cords down as needed. When I'm not using it, the hole is covered up by the Coca Cola straw dispenser :)

9. The tray on top of the fridge is from Amazon. It fits like a glove and it has handles so it's easy for me to pull it out without looking whenever I need something. It's kind of like a little makeshift utensil drawer!

10. My cute spice jars with the pink lids are no longer available but I'm going to link to them just in case they miraculously come back in stock someday.

11. My towel rack is from Amazon. I also bought some S-hooks separately so I could hang my measuring cups on the towel bar.

12. All of my canisters are these. I painted them (on the outside only, obviously) and then I designed custom labels and cut them out of vinyl on my Cricut.

13. My kitchen cart is no longer available in mint, it seems, but it's the absolute perfect size to go right next to the fridge and under the table (and at least it still seems to be available in pink!)

14. I got these containers for the shelving on the side of my table. While I was using the kitchen every day I had these pushed to one side and used the extra space on the side of the container to store rice, pasta, etc. but now I whittled down my supplies and can keep it a little more tidy. It was very difficult finding containers I liked that fit *almost* perfectly into this weird narrow shelf space but these worked great!

15. Some links to various kitchen stuff: my blender, pink daisy trivets, pink kitchen utensils, pink measuring cups, pink knives, scissors and cutting board set I also used a peel-and-stick towel hanger on the front of the table. The one I purchased isn't available anymore but it's just a basic circular hanger. The oven mitts were purchased during my last trip to Hollywood but I can't remember the name of the store, sorry!

16. The peel-and-stick tiles I used for my floor were from Amazon. I liked these because they had four squares per tile so the black-and-white pattern would show up even though I was doing this in such a tiny space.

17. Finally, my Instant Pot. This thing was a LIFE. SAVER. I was able to cook healthy meals for myself without access to a real kitchen. On the saute function I could make a scrambled egg for breakfast and with the pressure cook function I could make pasta fagioli for dinner. I even bought some pans to make baked goods in the instant pot like cornbread and cake on my birthday! I used this springform pan, this fluted pan, and this sling to lower them and raise them from the pot.

18. For good measure, here are a few of my favorite recipes that I made with my instant pot -

Orange chicken

Swedish meatballs with noodles (I used turkey meatballs)

Stuffed pepper soup (my favorite! I used ground chicken)

Chicken fried rice

And that's about it! Honestly this worked out for the best because this was an area of my room that I was always unsure what to do with. I've never been happy with it and it didn't show up in my photos all that often because I never felt like it looked right. So this little kitchen is a bit of a glow up for that corner of my room lol! Here's a before/after!

ps. Do you like the pink and brown purses hanging on the back of my door? I sure hope so!! More on those soon!! :D

Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Fri, 01 Jan 2021 21:26:00 +0000

Hey! From my last two posts it would appear that I've somehow turned into an "only blogs on holidays" blogger, lol! But actually the time period between Thanksgiving and today was unexpectedly hectic and weird and I even ended up closing my shop up way earlier than normal because I just needed some time to catch up on sleep and spend time with my family. When I tell you that this is the first time that I put on a dress since Thanksgiving, I am not exaggerating. I've exclusively been donning oversized sweatshirts and leggings while I napped and snacked my way through the last few weeks of 2020.

I've never felt more hopeful for a new year than I do for this one. Most January Firsts I start making big plans for vacations (usually to Disney World) and dreaming about all the fun adventures I'll have over the next twelve months. But this year honestly I'm just so excited about doing normal things again. Assuming all the vaccinations go according to plan, sometime this year I'll be able to see my friends again, go to Target, eat at my favorite restaurant, go grocery shopping, get my nails done, visit an art museum, go for a walk in the park, go out for ice cream, spend hours in a used bookstore, go to the movies, all these little things I used to take for granted before me and my family decided to spend the pandemic sheltering in place. I am so incredibly happy with our decision, and even if I don't get to leave the house again until November it will still have been worth it to know that my parents, who are both very high risk, are safe. But boy oh boy am I looking forward to hanging out in the Target Dollar Spot again, lol!

I'm not being too outrageous with resolutions this year since this is honestly a difficult time period we're all living through and just getting through it is resolution enough. But I am working on losing a little bit of the weight I put on this year, trying to be slightly more disciplined with my daily routine, and trying to save more than I spend. One thing I do really want to improve on is my communication skills, since I'm absolutely terrible at replying to messages. All of them - emails, texts, tweets, snail mail, you name it. I also have a habit of crafting replies in my head and thinking I actually sent them when I really never did. If anyone knows of some kind of full proof method for tackling this particular problem maybe let me know on twitter? (I'm @kategabrielle) I've tried working on this for probably a decade now but I'm always just so bad at it! Even if you do tweet me a link I probably will forget to reply to thank you. I'm that bad.

As always, if you're still here reading this blog thank you so much!! I hope you have a wonderful 2021 and hopefully I will see you here again before Valentine's Day lol!!

thankful

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Thu, 26 Nov 2020 21:08:00 +0000

The last year of my life has been very, very difficult for me. I've had something going on offline that made my life a living hell this year. It's not something I'm comfortable sharing (I didn't even tell my closest friends about it until about a month ago) but it was truly horrible, and it made every single thing in my life stressful, even the things I'd normally enjoy. Thankfully, the situation was finally resolved this weekend just in time for me to spend Thanksgiving feeling more grateful for all of life's simple pleasures than I've ever felt in my life.

There were so many times this year that I thought about the quote "be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle" because it's so true. We all choose to share tidbits of our lives online, but a lot of us are also fighting secret battles that nobody knows about. There have been a lot of times this year that posting my normal fluffy content on social media has been tough because behind the camera I've really been struggling to be happy. And there have been a lot of times that I just stopped posting things entirely because I couldn't bring myself to try to be positive online.

Thankfully this chapter is behind me now and I can really enjoy my life again. I'm so excited to share *genuinely* happy content with you here and on social media this holiday season!

If you are also going through a difficult time right now and feel like you're in a tunnel of misery with no end in sight, know that there really is a light at the end of the tunnel. You might not believe it now when every day feels like you're living a twisted version of Groundhog's Day, but someday things really will get better. And in the mean time please reach out to friends or talk to a therapist. My doctor helped me find a therapist earlier this year and our weekly video chats are what got me through this.

If you are reading this, I am so thankful for you and I hope you have a safe, healthy, and happy Thanksgiving today ❤️

dress - unique vintage | shoes - bait footwear | belt - collectif

tonight I'm gonna party like it's 2012

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 21:19:00 +0000

I have no idea why but when I woke up and got dressed this morning I was suddenly overcome with a huge wave of nostalgia for 2012. Those early days of blogging when the first thing I'd do when I woke up was check to see if my favorite style bloggers had shared any new outfits. There are so many girls that I absolutely *idolized* and just could not even begin to wrap my brain around their perfect color combinations, their beautiful vintage collections, their seemingly effortless ability to capture a perfect twirling freeze frame in the middle of a quiet city street.

I found myself googling a lot of old blogs today and I was heartbroken that a lot of them are either private now or just don't exist at all. I was a huge creeper and looked up some on the wayback machine so I could save my all-time favorite outfit posts to a private pinterest board for my own eternal inspiration. I'm not kidding when I say that some outfits have stuck with me, vivid in my mind, for the last 8 or 9 years. I was particularly mesmerized by the impeccable stylings of lace, pattern, and knife pleats that would usually grace the pages of Fancy Fine and All This Happiness. Yours Truly was my go-to for fun '60's inspired outfits and I am *still* looking for a pair of red mary janes as perfect as the ones she owned. Tick Tock Vintage introduced me to patterned nude tights, a revelation for me as I was always self conscious about going bare-legged in shorts. I still think about her blog whenever I buy a new pair. Every time I put on my mint green gloves in the winter I fondly recall this post from Skunkboy and how the mint gloves paired with black, grey, and rust always struck me as an absolutely genius combination.

Taking this stroll down memory lane today was so rejuvenating. It made me want to be more adventurous in my sartorial choices (I'm embarrassed to admit to you how often I've been opting for sweatshirts and leggings recently) and revisit some of the older pieces in my wardrobe that I haven't really reached for since 2012 or 2013!

ten obsessions

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Tue, 25 Aug 2020 22:07:00 +0000

Some things I'm incredibly obsessed with right now:

1. Disney's Magic Kingdoms app. I've been checking social media way less often and this has replaced my "first thing I look at in the morning" routine. I love when I wake up and I get to see how much magic my kingdom generated overnight, what characters are ready to level up, what I'll find in my daily chest. It's just pure fun, and it's an adequate replacement for not being able to actually visit the real Magic Kingdom during the pandemic.

2. Seinfeld. I started watching it for the first time earlier this year, and now I'm almost finished with season 6 in my first re-watch. I have no idea why it took me so long to finally give it a try, but it's definitely one of my all time favorite tv shows now. I can completely understand why it's generally considered one of the best sitcoms (if not *the* best) of all time. I also got my brother hooked on it, so my poor parents will always remember our quarantine as a period of non-stop Seinfeld references at the dinner table LOL!

3. Sweatshirts. I'm still trying to get dressed up each day during quarantine, especially when I go out for a daily walk with my dad, but honestly it doesn't take long after I get back in the house for me to change into ASOS legging pajamas and a big comfy sweatshirt. Comfort wise, sweatshirts have always been my favorite thing to wear (obviously aesthetic-wise my favorite is dresses) but I didn't have a huge collection of them. So over the last several months I've been buying some here and there until I reached a point where I needed to empty one of my dresser drawers to make room for more sweatshirts, lol! They're just so comfy!

4. Minnie ears. You'll notice a thread in this post -- Disney. I'm *always* obsessed with Disney, but 2020 has made me wrap myself in a big old comfort blanket of Disney films, nostalgia for the parks, and meticulous planning for my family's post-pandemic trip to the happiest place on earth. I love collecting Minnie ears, and sometimes I just wear them around the house as a little pick-me-up. I've added a few to my collection recently that are just SO cute, including a couple Halloween ears that I'm going to put on my Twiggy mannequin head as a seasonal decoration! I thought it would be fun to have her model my ear collection so one pair can be on display all the time, and I'll switch them out based on holidays/seasons.

5. Bubbie's pickles. My mom was joking that when I'm old and people asked if I hoarded toilet paper during the covid pandemic I can reply "no, but I hoarded pickles!" These pickles are SO good. I've been having a lot of gut health issues the last several months so I wanted to increase the amount of fermented foods in my diet. But I don't like yogurt, kombucha, or sauerkraut so I was... in a bit of a pickle. ;D Then I found Bubbie's - they're fermented pickles, and they are the crunchiest most delectable deli-style pickles I've ever tasted. They've been really hard to find so every time I place an instacart order I try to get them, hence my burgeoning collection of pickles in the refrigerator! My current motto is "a pickle a day keeps the GI doctor away" so as long as I have a healthy supply to get me through this pandemic, I'm good! ;D

6. Five Bedrooms. I got suckered into signing up for Peacock Premium because I watched the first episode of this delightful Australian tv show and that was the only way to watch the rest of the season. I especially like Ainsley (and I'm determined to find a button-down pinafore like the one she wears in most of the episodes!) I know everything is up in the air right now with the world the way it is, but I really hope this gets another season. It ended on a bit of a cliffhanger and I'm dying to see how it pans out!!

7. AllEars.net on youtube. Specifically Molly's videos. I am so obsessed. Molly visits the Disney parks (and Universal, occasionally) almost every day and films videos for the AllEars.net youtube channel. Some of them are challenges, like trying to do every single ride in one park in one day, attempting to get as many fast passes as possible (#fiddlefaddle) or letting instagram decide her whole day. Some are more like ratings - what are the best foods, the best rides, the best things to do outside the parks, the best eats at the resorts, etc. And some are trivia videos like the secrets behind The Haunted Mansion or fun facts about Liberty Square. Every single video is SO MUCH FUN and it feels like you're actually there at the park hanging out with a really cool and funny friend. I'm pretty sure if I ever see her in a park I'm going to fangirl, like horribly embarrassingly fangirl.

8. The new Killers album! Specifically the song "My God." This album has been a shining light in quarantine. Having singles released sporadically throughout the shutdown was such a gift, and then once they announced the release date of August 21st I immediately set up countdown clocks on my computer & phone - it gave me something to look forward to in this endless groundhog's day situation we're living in. The morning the album was released I listened to it nonstop on repeat, and then started repeating "My God" until I realized I knew all the lyrics and could sing along at the top of my lungs.

The last thing that I did before my grandmom got sick and moved in with us was attend a Killers concert in Bethlehem, PA last September. Within a week of the concert my grandmom was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and signed up for hospice care. Since I was her full time caregiver until quarantine started, I hadn't really left the house at all since last October. That concert meant a lot to me then, and it means even more to me now - a symbol of normalcy that is lost forever. I'm closing in on a full year of not really leaving my house, but listening to this album and closing my eyes is a beautiful escape. To quote 'My God' again, "it's like a weight has been lifted."

9. "I Fall to Pieces" by Patsy Cline. I've listened to this song on repeat so many times lately. I'm not sad and I'm not in love, so I can't relate to the lyrics, but the artistry is just so achingly beautiful. A lot of the time I choose music based on a specific mood - happy music for happy days, sadder music for sad days, energetic music when I need some pep in my step, etc. But sometimes you just need to listen to a work of art for arts sake alone. And that's what I Fall to Pieces is to me.

10. Procreate & Bardot Brushes. I made the switch from Adobe Draw to Procreate as my primary app for illustration earlier this year, but I didn't fully get the hang of it until a few months ago when I discovered Bardot Brush. Lisa Bardot makes custom brush sets for Procreate that really mimic physical drawing tools like gouache, pencil, and markers. I get so much more texture and depth and character with her brushes than anything I've ever been able to achieve with digital art before. Plus her Procreate tutorials are AMAZING. I have learned so much about this app that's made it infinitely more easy to use. I had been planning on making a little Procreate tutorial myself once I mastered the app but honestly, if anyone out there wants to know how it works, just look up Lisa's tutorials!

dress - c/o collectif | shoes - amazon

ten years

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Wed, 12 Aug 2020 22:55:00 +0000

This past July was my 10th anniversary of taking outfit pictures! It's incredibly surreal that I've spent a full decade now propping up a tripod and taking self portraits to document whatever I was wearing that day. I originally started because I wanted to increase my self confidence, and I think I definitely succeeded. When I go back and look at photos from 2010, and then look at photos from the past year, I can see a huge difference. I look at the camera more often, I smile more, and I don't cover my face up with an opaque red oval in photoshop like I did in my first outfit post. I definitely built up confidence in myself, my own weird sense of style, and my body image.⁠ ⁠

If you've ever considered posting outfit photos or starting a style blog, I highly recommend it. Not only did it help me find my style and feel much more comfortable in my own skin, but now I have this collection of 10 years worth of photos that I never would have had otherwise. It's fun to go back and look at old outfits. They trigger memories like you wouldn't expect - a dress will immediately remind me of one of my cats, or a family trip, or meeting up with a friend. Some outfits remind me of my old apartment, or an art show, or a big life decision. ⁠ ⁠⁠

And if anyone out there has been around since 2010 - thank you so much for your encouragement that inspired me to keep with it all these years, and thank you, thank you, thank you for sticking around! Now that I have 10 years of photos under my big purple bow belt, I think maybe I'll try for another 10! ;)⁠ ⁠⁠

dress c/o collectif | shoes - amazon | belt - amazon

posh frock friday

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Sat, 30 May 2020 04:13:00 +0000

During quarantine I've seen so many people say that they are wearing sweatpants or pajamas because they have nowhere to go and it's weird because "having nowhere to go" has kind of been my whole life for the last 15 years. I've been working from home since I was 17, and I don't really have much of a social life. (Okay I don't have ANY social life. I might as well be honest here lol!)

Taking outfit pictures has been a fun way to document my outfits even when the only person seeing them in person is my cat. I definitely could have spent most of my life in pajamas, but I haven't for a few reasons. First of all, I feel way way way less productive in pajamas. When I get dressed in the morning I feel like it's "time to work" and I get way more done. If I stay in pajamas it's just way too easy to crawl back into bed - especially easy when my office is just about fifteen paces away from my bedroom. I also just really enjoy clothes. I haven't wasted away my income on dresses so they can sit in my closet. I love wearing them, so I wear them! And lastly, this might be crazy but I feel like I don't appreciate how comfortable pajamas are unless I've been wearing real clothes all day. I love that moment before bedtime when I put on fresh jammies, and I don't think I'd enjoy it as much if I was just changing from one pair of pajamas into another lol!

Also honestly getting dressed has helped me feel like I have *some* control over something during Everything That's Going On. When I got really sick in 2017-2018 I lived in pajamas for a few months until I started to recover, and one of the things I was most looking forward to was wearing my pretty clothes again. It made me feel like my life was kind of normal again when I was finally able to ditch the elastic waistbands for fancy frocks. Every day that I get dressed and glide a thick black line across my eyelid, I've done something normal and executed a little bit of control over my life. It's such a small thing but honestly it makes a huge difference to me.

oh hi

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Wed, 27 May 2020 05:24:00 +0000

March was the tenth anniversary of this blog, and the tenth anniversary of my first outfit post is rapidly approaching, on July 25th. And I've been thinking about Scathingly Brilliant an awful lot because of those two anniversaries.

Since my last post in December I cannot count how many times I thought "what was that recipe?" or "when did I go on that vacation?" or "what was Arrietty like when I first brought her home?" or "what did my bedroom look like in 2011?" and I hopped over to this blog, typed a keyword in the search bar, and boom! My own little search engine for the last ten years of my life.

During all this reminiscing I also happened upon this David Bowie video on youtube, and this quote has been ringing in my mind ever since, "Always remember that the reason you initially started working was that there was something inside yourself that you felt that if you could manifest it in some way you would understand more about yourself and how you coexist with the rest of society."

When I stopped blogging in December it was admittedly because I felt like nobody really read my blog anymore. If you know me, you know that my ego is as fragile as a broken eggshell and I avoid seeing things like follower counts, page views, likes, retweets, etc. like my life depends on it. I have somehow managed to totally avoid seeing how many instagram followers I have since 2018. Is there something pathologically wrong with the fact that I bought an ipod in order to login to my second instagram account so that I don't have to switch accounts within the app and see my follower counts? Definitely. I'm seeing a therapist, okay, lol. But the ignorance keeps me going. I hate this about myself so much, and I'm working on it, but that's just how I am.

Anyway so this is where the David Bowie quote comes in. In December I accidentally clicked on a page that showed me my dwindling blog stats, something I had managed to evade for a very long time, and I stopped blogging here. But that's not why I started! I'm such a dummy!

In my second blog post here, on March 22, 2010, I wrote about my favorite songs. I was 23 years old and my favorite song was Lara's Theme from Doctor Zhivago. I was also obsessed with the Frank Sinatra song "Take Me" which I don't think I've listened to in at least 9 years. I'm listening to it right now and it's like a time machine to being 23 again.

How will I feel if ten years from now I want to know what my favorite song was (Dustland Fairytale by The Killers) or see what my room looked like in 2020? If I want to know my go-to recipe for smoothie bowls or to know what crazy new career I was interested in, but would predictably never follow through on. How would I remember what year I was obsessed with Seinfeld (2020) or what year I trademarked my own name (also 2020!) How would I know what month I learned to do my own acrylic nails (March 2020) and what month I completely gave up and took them off (May 2020.) Ten years from now how will I know how well I coped when my actual worst nightmare of a global outbreak came true (spoiler: not well.) I like having this record of my life - the ups and the downs, the pixies and the pink dos, the anxiety and jubilation and everything in between - and I don't want to totally abandon this little search engine.

So anyway.. I'm going to blog here now and then, mostly for me, but if anyone out there happens to be tagging along, it's for you too 💕

outfit posts

noreply@blogger.com (kate gabrielle) — Fri, 06 Dec 2019 20:33:00 +0000

Hi there! I just wanted to pop in and let you know that I'm still doing outfit posts but they'll be over on my patreon now (they're set to public so you can view them even if you're not a supporter. Don't worry, it's FREEEEE!!!) It's just easier for me to post things in one spot and my traffic on this blog indicates that this is really not the spot I should be posting things anymore, lol! I think when I took a blogging hiatus in 2014 my blog kind of drifted off into some blogging abyss where even if you return and blog daily (or, lately, monthly) nobody knows.

ANYWAY. If anyone is out there (*if anyone is out there* echoes back at me) you can find my new posts over there.

Click here to view this particular outfit post and learn a bit about what's been going on in my life and my beautiful love story about this pretty dress. Hope to see you there!